Bloody Pulpits, Mall Rats and Soft Targets or When In the Gun Sight, Hindsight is Best

After mall-rats slaughtered 50 in a Kenyan, should we jump up on their bloody corpses, like Sandy Hook and the Navy Yard and preach, this should shock the American people into stricter gun laws? Since these areas already had some of the strictest gun laws in the US, did this prevent the attacks? Did these stricter gun laws save any of the victims?

If we look back on the shootings from Columbine to Washington, and ask “How could these have been prevented?” The simple answers become obvious. But they each raise the question, “How can we do that?”

Reporting threats can give law enforcement a fighting chance to stop tragedy before it happens. This is not a bad thing. Citizens armed with the truth can take aim at potential perpetrators and pull the trigger to have them detained by law enforcement.

Immediately after Columbine, several teenagers came to me and said that a group of boys were threatening to bring guns to school and stage their own mass shooting. I strongly urged them to go straight to the police and file a formal report. They did and the would-be copycat shooters were picked up. Guns were removed from their homes. Professional counseling provided ongoing treatment and monitoring to prevent potential violence. This was a good thing.

Had they not reported the threats immediately, I would have gone directly to the police and filed a report. We are all our brother’s keepers and mandatory reporters when it comes to threats of mass violence.

Strengthening gun laws may lower individual domestic violence in some areas, but it attracts, and even enables mass shooters to be able to kill more victims. The locations of most mass shootings have occurred in gun-free zones: areas with some of the strictest gun laws on the books. There is much evidence that greater gun control means more mass shootings. Criminals can always steal guns. They are emboldened by the fact that the good guys who obey the strict gun laws will be unarmed and unable to offer any meaningful resistance. This is a soft target, but such a hard sell to a government who no longer trusts the masses with the freedom to arm themselves to defend their lives and their families.

Mass killings are only possible where citizens are disarmed. Otherwise the first shot would un-holster the wrath of everyone armed in the crowd. Disarming citizens makes us all like clay pigeons at a shooting gallery. Whether we are navy personnel or school teachers, the nearest law enforcement is usually miles away. So while we wait for them to arrive the body count multiplies.

Those of us who have stared down the barrel of a gun in the hands of a violent criminal have a different prospective than the gun-o-phobics. In my case it was 4 hours of waiting for the police, locked in the trunk of my car after a hold-up.

Well-meaning gun control legislators all enjoy armed security guards. They exempt themselves as an elitist ruling class behind trained, armed anti-insurgency experts with bullet proof vests, while they enact laws that dis-armed the masses and line them up as if for a firing squad. If this is not true, then why aren’t they the first to disarm their security guards? How many more innocent people have to die before the ruling class gets the point? People need protection and the police are so under-funded, under supported and few and far between, that some good guys in the crowd need to have the freedom and the right to be armed. Is voter life so cheap to these pontificating politicians?

This is bad enough, but now, they do not even wait until the bodies are cold, before they jump on them as bloody pulpits to preach their gospel of stricter gun control. Can we stop violent psychotic criminals from getting guns? Can we keep them from selectively attacking gun-free soft targets where strict laws are effectively disarming the compliant masses?

Perhaps, as we disarm defenders who might shoot and stop a potential mass murderer, we should tie up the women, children and military to make them easier targets for the criminal. Removing any possibility of self-defense is like providing greater killing potential to the criminal. It’s like providing weapons and buying ammo for potential mass shooters. Outlawing all who would use guns to protect others is like painting targets on us all.

Is the problem caused by guns or the people who commit the crimes? Can’t we keep guns out of the hands of mentally disturbed or violent individuals? Lock up all the lunatics and all the weapons and there will still be those who will find access to weapons and use them. As long as there are disturbed violent criminals and terrorists in this world, there will always be mass shootings and other deadly attacks. Even if we gave up all our rights and lived in a Stalinist-style police state where the government controlled all weapons and monitored all citizens, there would still be some suicidal shooter who would find access to weapons through police, military, and black-market to commit mass murder.

Blaming guns diverts attention from the real cause: defunded, unsupported, law enforcement and mental health service facilities. Many are forced to throw violent criminals back on the streets. HIPAA Privacy Rules make tracking mentally unstable persons difficult. It is time to track signs that cause crimes like this and work on prevention.

Prescribing drugs may mask violent tendencies, but just long enough for a parole board to release killers back into the general population. Release violent criminals, and you put us all in jail. Many of these become homeless, unemployable rejects of society. In their minds, the only hope these cast off misfits have for a life, is the media’s bloodthirsty hunger for sensational coverage ratings. Shouldn’t we let them die in anonymity, rather than making them more famous than Elvis? Perhaps stricter ‘press-control’ laws would help. Should we arrest any member of the press that mentions a perpetrator’s name?

Can’t we keep armed assailants from bringing guns into our public buildings? Even with the TSA and all their airport security measures, they still find it necessary to post an armed US Marshall on every flight. Is it acceptable for it to be harder to get on a plane than it is to walk into a school, meeting or mall with a gun?

Where ever you find the right to bear arms, you don’t find mass shooting violence. The best way to control gun violence is with guns. Otherwise, swat teams would carry night sticks. A few responsible gun owners in the crowd, could have easily stopped each of the mass shootings: at least the ‘mass’ part. In fact, this happens every day, but the gun control lobby media suppresses these stories.

Expecting people to give up gun use is as unrealistic as confiscation all cars because of DUI’s. Criminals are criminals because they have no regard for the law and could care less whether guns are banned or not. In some countries, machine guns carry the same penalty as hand guns. Guess which weapon criminals select in those countries.

Can a leader be this simple or does he really have something else in mind? Is this about gun control, or people control? When Germany disarmed the Jews, did anyone dream that such a great leader could kill 6 million of them? Were the trains to the gas chambers easier to load once the Jews were disarmed? Before we condemn those who allowed this to happen, shouldn’t we make a quick run to the gun store?

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